PORT TOWNSEND — Gabe Quintanilla’s mission this season: placing a sleek bicycle under the tree for a surprised youngster.
Make that many bicycles. A volunteer at the ReCyclery’s Holiday Kids Bike Giveaway Program, Quintanilla has spent recent months refurbishing wheels for toddlers on up to teenagers. By last week, more than 50 bikes were on their way to households across Jefferson County.
And Quintanilla continues to spread the holiday spirit around the nonprofit cycling center. He recently finished a Christmas tree made of old bike wheels, for example.
The Port Ludlow resident, who drives to the Larry Scott Trail parking lot on Port Townsend’s outskirts and then pedals his bike to the ReCyclery at 1925 Blaine St., is one of a few volunteers still working on site.
His shepherd-chow cross, Zeke, also spends many afternoons there.
Quintanilla couldn’t say how many bikes he’s rebuilt, but estimated it’s “a few dozen.”
People bring bicycles in all year long for the giveaway program, said Executive Director Liz Revord.
Volunteers are trained to break down, recondition, repaint and reassemble them.
Since November, many on the volunteer team have chosen to stay home as Jefferson County’s COVID-19 cases rose. The work space at the ReCyclery is snug, and “90 percent of our volunteers are older,” Revord said, so they’re at higher risk.
Revord misses the camaraderie of having workers together at the shop. But as with other activities affected by the pandemic, “they’re doing the best they can,” and in some cases working on bikes at home. The giveaway program has rolled on, thanks to the way the volunteers have adapted.
The ReCyclery works with Dove House Advocacy Services, the Olympic Community Action Programs and Jumping Mouse Children’s Center, she said, to match bicycles with kids whose families otherwise couldn’t afford them.
“We just want to have them under the tree, or ready for whatever holidays they’re celebrating,” Revord said.
She and her team have had a few adult bike requests from parents who want to ride with their children. To these, they said a prompt yes.
The organization, which began 13 years ago as a free bike-repair clinic in an alleyway beside the old Boiler Room coffeehouse, is intent on helping more people two-wheel it around town, whatever their age and socioeconomic status.
Information about its many activities, membership program and local bike-friendly businesses is found at PTReCyclery.org, while the center itself is open noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
By now the shop has taken about as many Christmas-bike requests as it can handle, Revord said, but she welcomes post-holiday requests from families.
“If someone has financial barriers, just contact us,” via 360-643-1755 or info@ptrecyclery.org.
“If a bike doesn’t work for a child,” Revord added, “we take care of that as well.”
She saluted the giveaway program’s sponsors, Miller and Ashmore Real Estate and Napa Auto Parts, which provide the paint for the reborn bikes.
The hands-on treatment from volunteers, she added, “has just been amazing.”
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
